The Union! Its dangers!! and how they can be averted : letter from Samuel J. Tilden to Hon. William Kent

THE UNION! ITS BAWGEES!!

AND HOW THEY CAN BE AVERTED.

LETTER FROM SAMUEL J. TILDEN

HON. WILLIAM KENT.

To the Hon. William KtU :

Dear Sir : Among mj early memories of public
affairs, during the tariff and nullification coutro-
Tersies, I recollect the illustrious name of your fa-
father, James Kent, signed to a call for a meeting
of the citizens of New York, to recommend to Con-
gress the adoption of measures of concihation tow-
ards our bre-thren of the South. The association
recurs to nxj mind as often as I think of your name
on the tfeioii electoral ticket, which I consider a
most wise*,aad necessary endeavor to rescue our
country Jn^a far more perilous political conjuncture.
I had no agency in putting it there ; but I know it
represents no partisan interest, prejudice or pas-
sion, no man'svanily or ambition, and still less any
illiberal opinion or feeling toivards natives of foreign
lands who have chosen this for their home. It re-
presents nothing less worthy or less noble than pa-
triotic devotion to the country, and serious and
well-considered solicitude for the welfare of the
hitherto fortunate people of these, as yet, United
States. I share the sentiments which animate you
in the present crisis. I recall your desire when
last we met, that I should express to our citizens
the convictions often avowed to you. An occasion
has arisen which commits me to do so. I have

five per cent, of the whole number; extremely
rare except in cases where the issue on which the
parties form is made up to suit specially some lo-
cality. In shaping the policy which emerges from
the conflict, the minority acts a part scarcely less
important than the majority ; and the dissentients
are thus prepared to accept the result.

THE PROCESS OF SELF-GOVEBNMENT.

Such is the process by which the will of all the
parts of the community is collected, averaged and
represented in the policy finally agreed upon. This
is the method of self-government.

WHY SELF-GOVERXMENT IS BEST.

The reason why self-government is better than
government by any one man, or by a foreign
people, is that the policy evolved by this process
is generally better adapted to the actual condition
of the society on which it is to operat^. Govern-
ment by one man often fails to understand, but it
usually defers. Government by a foreign people
neither understands nor defers. It has no adapta-
tion to the wants or temper of the governed. It is,
therefore, about the Worst government that can be
imagined.

THE FEDERATIVE SVSTEII OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERXMEXT.

Our fathers understood this truth. They had
tried the exoerimeut. They had been driven to

chosen the form of a letter ; I dedicate that letter i revolution by George the Third, said to be the
to you. It is a testimony of my respect and affec- j ., ^^^^ honest man in his own dominions," and by
ticn, and that we think the same things concerning j ^j^^ g^j^- ^^ ^^^^^ North, and had seen how cordially
our country. Your interest in thegreat theme will j ji^^ British people sustained whatever was worst in
compeusati all deficiencies in the offering. , all the policy of monarch and minister. They fore-
THE USB OF PARTIES. ! saw that a single government, exercising all the
The tendency of parties is to draw the vaiious po- j powers of society oVer the people destined to oc-
litical elements into two divisions, and to equalize ; cupy so va^t a region as the United States, and em-
those divisions. The minority adopts enough of j bracing the elements of such diversities of interest,
the ideas of the majority to attract those who are j industry, opinion, habits and manners, would be in-
nearest to the line of division ; and the majority, in ' ' '' '

struggling to retain them, makes conces-iioos. The

issue is thus constantly shiftinfj " with the waver-
ing tide of battle," until the policy, which at last
prevails has become adjusted so as nearly to repre-
sent the average sense of the whole people. It is
rare in our political experience that the differ-
ence between the majority and the minority equals

tokrabis to bear and impossible to CDntiuue. They,
therefore, largely adopted the federative idea in the
m.ixed system which they established ; and vesting
only the powers appertaining to our foreign rela-
tions and to certain specified common objects of a
domestic nature in a federative agency, they left the
great residuary mass of governmental functions ta
the several states.

ANOMALOUS CHARACTER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. I

In the practical working of this beautiful but
complex system, the Republican party is a pbeno- I
menon, new and startling. It is the first instim^e 1
in which any partisan organization has been able I
to compete, with any prospect of success, for as-
cendancy in our federative government, without i
being national in its structure, without being com- j
posed of majorities — or of minorities able to com- '
pete effectively with majorities— in all the states of!
both great sections of the Union. The Republican |
party has no practical existence in all the fifteen |
southern states. In a few points, where the five |
border states touch the North, it has a nominal ex-
istence, but without any appreciable power over |
the opinion or action of those states, fn the ten I
other states it has no alEliations whatever. I

THAT SECTIONAL CHARACTER INHERENT. I

This condition of things is not an accident. It |
is the result of five years of earnest discussion be- [
fore the southern people of the character and ob-
jects of the Republican party. It is produced i
against the strongest motives which influence the
formation of party connections. Ties ot ancient
association between most of its members, and the
dissevered minorities of the South — fragments of
the old whig party, anxious to beat their local
rivals, and impelled towards alliances by the in-
stinct of self-preservation; common opposition to
an existing administration ; the prospect of com-
mon success, and of sharing in a political ascen-
•dancy — all these potential causes united have ut-
terly failed to draw to it any considerable numbers
■of adherents in all the South, against the per-
vading, immense, ovei-whelming public opinion of
all those states.

I speak not now of causes. I simply state the
fact. Our Republican friends will say that their po-
licy is misunderstood by the southern people.
There is undoubtedly a serious misunderstanding
between the Republican party and the whole south-
ern people. In what does this misunderstanding
consist ? It is easier for the Republican party to
mistake as to the effects of its policy on the inter-
ests of the South, than for the whole southern peo-
ple to mistake the real nature of that policy.

I am apt to pay some respect to the unanimous
opinion of great commonwealths on a question pe-
culiarly affecting themselves.

HEPUDLICAN ASCENDENCY IS PRACTICALLY FOREIGN
GOVERNMENT.

If such an organization as the Republican party
should acquire complete possession of the federa-
tive government, what sort of a system would it be ?
To the people of the fifteen states it would be a
foreiijn government. It would be erected over
ithem through the forms of their constitution ; but

that would not affect its practical character. None
of their citizens would have concurred in bringing
the administration into existence. None of their
public opinion would be represented in that admin-
istration.

PERILOUS SUBJECT OF THE CONTROVERSY.

Now, what is the question between the eighteen
northern states and the fifteen southern states of
the confederacy, out of which arises a state of
things so novel and so extraordinary ?

It is a controversy— (how far of mere opinion
and how far operating pract'cally, I will presently
discuss I— it is a controversy which touches the re-
lations of two races, being eight and a half millions
of whites and four millions of blacks, composing
all the population of these fifteen states ; relations
which constitute a whole system of industry, fur-
nishing their staple exports and their exchanges
with us and with all the world ; relations which
thus involve a vast interest in property— not less
than three thousand millions of dollars — permeating
these fifteen states ; relations which are the basis
of the habits of families and of society in all these
commonwealths, and of their social order, a shock
to which is associated in the mind of the dominant
race, with a pervading sense of danger to the life of
every human being and the honor of every woman.

This nature of the subject matter, out of which
the controvcrsj' arises, explains and accounts for a
state of parties so anomalous. Such a disorder in
the voluntary machinery by which popular govern-
ment is carried on, is in itself serious ; but it is
more important as a symptom of a malady in the
body-politic, deeply seated and far more dangerous.

SECTIONALISM OF PARTIES.

Sectionalism of parties has hitherto never gone
beyond a little predominance of a party in the states
of one section and a little predominance of the other
party in the states of another section. In that mild
form its tendency alarmed the heroic mind of Wash-
ington, and drew from him an impressive warning
in his Farewell Address. Sectionalism is now
threatening to become absolute in a predominance
of a party in eighteen states which has no practical
existence in fifteen states.

Sectionalism of parties has hitherto been founded
in differences upon subjects comparatively unim-
portant. It touched nothing deeper than the de-
tails of a t-ariff, when it called out all the patriotic
courage and energy of Jackson to avert its dangers.

Sectionalism is now founded upon differences of
opinion reaching to the very structure of civil so-
ciety in fifteen states.

With the prudent and conservative Monroe medi-
ating at the head of the government, and with Clay-
in the House of Representatives, exerting for pacifi-
cation all his matchless power over assemblies,

3

sectionalism, not of popular parties, but in Con-
gress, on a question like the present, though, in the
mitigated form of the Jlissouri controversy, woke
Jefferson, as he expressed it, " like a fire-bell at
night," from the repose of his retirement, and made
him for the first time almost despair of the republic.
Sectionalism on a question ot the same nature is now
worn into the minds of the people by five years of
organized agitation. It has become the sole basis
of existing party divisions, and threatens to seize
all the powers of the government.

Each of the elements of evil, which, of a feebler
type, and in an incipient state, filled these heroes
and statesmen of our revolutionary and constitu-
tional era with apprehension, is now grown to a
magnitude which they could never have conceived ;
and these elements, thus grown, are conjoined into
one monstrous malady. And jet every shallow
sophister who can pen a line for the skimming eye
of thoughtless readers, wiser than Washington,
braver than Jackson, more skilled in our complex
government than Jefferson, scoffs at the danger,
and scoffs at all who see it as insincere or timid !

EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE FOR DISUNIOX.

A sectional division, upon a sectional issue, of the
great parties which organize and represent the con-
flicting opinions of society, and which compete for
the control of the machinery of government in a
system of confederated states, rapidly and effectual-
ly educates the people for disunion.

It is not the ordinary case of party excitements
between citizens united in the same community.
There, misapprehensions are removed and animosi-
ties assuaged by mutual contact; adversaries min-
gle in the transactions of business and in the inter-
course of society ; meet at the same church in a
common worship, and on a thousand occasions of
familiar and friendly association; they are brought
together and kept together by common fricads;
they are interlaced with each other by the number-
less ties which spring up, and grow around, and
grow over individuals living in one community ;
they cannot move their houses, shops, or farms ;
they cannot tear asunder the social ligaments which
bind them together.

Now imagine parties such as we have often
known them, in their mutual misapprehensions and
mutual injustice, and their passionate animosities ;
one party dominating in eighteen states on one side
of a geographical line, and the other composing the
whole people of fifteen states on the other side of
that line. They know each other only through
their excited imaginations. The antipathies of
each are directed against a distant people. Each
is organized into states, with complete govern
ments, holding the purse and wielding the svvord.
They are held together only by a compact of con-
federation.

FEDERATIVE SYSTEM IKCREASES SUCH DAXGEUS.

Will their mutual animosities be equally safe,
equally harmless as the party controversies of indi-
viduals united in one community ? The strain, the
shock of the collision between these organized
masses, must be vastly greater. The single, slender,
conventional tie which holds states in confederation,
has no strength compared with the compacted, in-
tertwining fibres which bind the atoms of human
society into one formation of natural growth.

The masters in political science who constructed
our sj'stem, preserved the state governments as bul-
warks of the freedom of individuals and localities
against oppression from centralized power. They
recognised no right of constitutional secession, but
they left revolution organized, whenever it should
be demanded by the public opinion of a state ; left
it with power to snap the tie of confederation as a
nation might break a treaty, and to repel coercion
as a nation might repel invasion. They caused us
to depend, in a great measure, upon the public opin-
ion of the states in order to maintain a confedera-
ted Union. They intended to make it necessary for
us, in every reasonable extent, to respect that pub-
lic opinion.

How long could an organized popular agitation in
England against France, or in France against Eng-
land, conlicue without actual hostilities, especially
if embracing a majority of the people and the gov-
ernments? Wars have as often been produced by
popular passions as by the policy of rulers ; but I
venture to say that in the causes of all such wars
during a century past, there has not been so much
material for offence as could be found every year in
the fulminations of a party swaying the govern-
ments of many northern states against the entire
social and industrial systems of fifteen of our sister
states; — so much to repel the opinion, to alienate
the sentiments and to wound the pride.

MODERATE REPUDLICANS.

It would be doing injustice to multitudes of pat-
riotic citizens who belong to the Kepublican party
to impute to them extreme opinions or intentions
consciously hostile to the peace and safety of the
southern states. Antagonism to the democratic
party, habitual with many who were whigs ; misap-
prehensions and excitement growing out of the re-
peal of the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas
controversy ; opposition to various incidents m the
policy of the existing democratic Administration ;
the desire for change and for new combinations
which arises under a continuous ascendency of
any party in our country — all these motives of po-
litical action have arrayed in the Republican ranks
many men of moderate opinions, who, if they saw
the real nature and inevitable results of a sectional
party organization, would recoil from them in just
and patriotic alarm.

FALSE POSITION' OF THEIR PARTY.

It is not the purposes of such men but the practi-
cal attitude of their party which constitutes the evil.
That party is in a false position. Without the coun-
terpoise which would be the eflfect of its affiliation
with the opposition element in^he southern states,
freed from any such necessity for moderation, com-
peting for popular favor in the I^orth alone, and,
therefore, addressing itself exclusively to northern j
opinions, prejudices and passions, it has been j
steadily drifting into a more vehement, a less dis-
criminating and a blinder antagonism to the South,
and yielding to the dominion of extreme ideas and
of the more violent elements which it contains.
Without anything to represent it in the southern
states, it has no means to resist the inevitable ten-
dency there to impute to it purposes even beyond
thosfi which it really entertains ; and no nocans of
inspiring confidence, allaying apprehension, or con-
ciliating opinion among the masses in the localities
of the South.

THE XECESSART CONSEQUENCES.

It is thus that the divergence between these ma-
joiities of the North on the one side and the whole
people of the South on the other, has been foryeai;s
increasing. Extremes on the one side provoke ex-
tremes on the other. Alienation, mutual distrust,
misapprehension of each others motives and ob-
jects, animosities, and above all and worse than all,
convictions and principles which induce each to 1
dictate impracticable conditions of reconciliation, j
are setting deeper and deeper into the masses un- |
der the iatiuence of systematic sectional agitation. I

It would be strange if this immense and power- I
ful popular machinery swaying the state gov- |
ernments of both sections, which has been em- 1
i>loyed for five years in dividing the country geo- ;
graphically, had not cloven do'.vn between the i
masses of the people in the two sections a chasm ;
deeper and wider and more difficult to close up
than ever existed before. i

CHKOXIC SECTIONALISM IS INEVITABLE DlSTNIOX. '

If such a division of parties, founded upon such I
antagonism of opinions, habits and interests in-
volving the systems of industry and of society, ex- i
isiiog at the North and in the South, becomes <
chronic, its natural and inevitable result must be
disunion. The cord of frateinal sentiment and
common opinion which holds the sections together,
cannot, by any possibility, endure the gradual,
steady wear of these unceasing conflicts, and the |
ever augmenting violence of the shock of repealed j
collisions between the popular matscs which the '
two sections embody. ;

This is, to me, no new opinion. I'communicated '
it in writing in 18f5, to a gentleman now eminent
i'j. the Republican party, before he engnged in its

formation; and expressed the conviction that the
evil would have reached a dangerous, if not fatal
point of culmination when a purely northern party
should have found itself able to elect a President
on a pitched battle with the southern states over
questions and ideas which thrill to the very life-
centres of southern society.

SUMMARY OP THE DISCUSSION THUS FAR.

I have now considered the anomalous nature of
the Republican party as an organization; I have
shown bow, as it assumes the powers of our federa-
tive system, it subverts the essential character of
that system, and erects in practice a foreign govern-
ment over fifteen states. I have pointed out how,
in the meantime, such a division of parties is edu-
cating the people for disunion ; in what manner it
ripens its fatal fruits, and to what maturity they
have already approached. I have indicated the
subject of the controversy between the northern
majorities and the southern people, out of which
this condition of things arises ; demonstrated bow
near it is to the very structure of civil, social and
industrial life in all the South ; and inferred that it
is only such a subject of controversy that could
create such a state of parties ; and conversely, that
such a state of parties, on such a subject, is a con-
centrated evil and an accumulated danger. I have
invoked the maxims deduced from the experience
of all mankind, and our own accepted theories of
self-government to justifying me in stating the im-
mense presumption, that the southern people un-
derstand the effects upon themselves of the Repub-
lican organizalion and policy better than the Re-
publicans do ; and that, at all events, the nearly
unanimous judgment of fifteen great communities
ought to be respected ; that their judgment, as to
the establishment over them of any affirmative me.'i-
sures exclusively affecting themselves, ought to be
conclusive.

It remains to analyse the avowed proposition of
the Republican parly to the people of the South.

xVre tlie southern people to be convinced, or is
the Republican party to recede from its principles,
its policy, and its organization '? In what manner
is a reconciliation to be efiected, and upon what
terms? What ought to be the basis of a reconcilia-
tion? Will the Republican party make it volunta-
rily, or must the people of t'e North cast off the
Republican party as an element of disease and dis-
cord, and thus restore harmony and health to our
federative system ?

If the Republican party entrenches itself in the
Presidency, will the constitution of our bcdy politic
await the tardy remedy, or will it perish in the pro-
cess towards restoration ?

These are grave questions. Let us proceed to
consider them.

CHARACTER, AIMS AXD POLICY OP THE UEPTDLICAX
PARTY.

What is the character of the Republican party ?
What are the aims ? What is to be its practical
policy, in case it gains possession of the govern-
ment •?

ORGANIZED AGITATION AGAINST SLAVERY".

1. It is an organized agitation on the general
question of slavery, mainly irrespective of the
practical application of its conclusions to any pro-
posed measure of legislation or administration by
the federal government. It is net easy to define
the exact limit where the liberty of philosophical
speculation or abstract discussion ends, and an
oOence against good neighborhood— whether of in-
dividuals, families or states— begins. But it is very
clear that the Republican party has passed that
boundary; for an organized agitation by a majority
of one community, including its government,
against the social or industrial system of a neigh-
boring and friendly community is an offence which
leads to alienation and hostility, if not to actual
war. Even if we assume that the exclusion of
slavery from the territories is within the legitimate
sphere of the federal government, it cannot be pre-
tended that the general character of the discussion
kept up by the Republican party is subordinate to
that end. Indeed, the territorial aspect of the con-
troversy has almost entirely disappeared. Instead
of inquiring how far it is the right and the duty of
the northern states through the federal government
to give effect on the teriitorial question to the gene-
ral ideas they might be assumed to entertain, the
orators and journals, which represent the Republi-
can party are almost exclusively occupied in ex-
citing the hostility of the people agaiust slavery
as a system, irrespective of the territories, and
often the intentign is avowed to act by indirect
means upon slavery within the states.

" MORAL SCASION " THROUGn OUR FEDERATIVE GO-
VERXME.NT.

Among those means is a gigantic system of
" moral suasion," as Mr. Seward calls it in one of
his recent speeches, »;o?'n^ coo'cioa in fact, by which
it shall propagate its ideas among the people of the
southern states against their present social and in-
dustrial systems, through permanent party organi-
zations dominating in the northern states, swaying
the northern governments, and finally through the
federative government of all the states. Mr. Seward
does not say whether the postmasters and other
officers of the federative government are to be made
little centres of anti-slavery opinion; but he seems
to think that all the usual methods by which parties
act may be properly applied to the end. Jsow the
states are as sovereign, with respect to slavery
within their own borders as any foreign nation. If
we were by " moral suasion " to attempt to apply

our ideas in respect to the only rightful form of go-
vernment, or in respect to the freedom of the press
to the French people, through our minister at Paris,
he would be dismissed, and if found to be acting
under our instructions, we should become objects of
just hostilities on the part of the French govern-
ment. A similar experiment in the southern states
would probably result in the expulsion of the fede-
ral otficials, if not in a civil war. According to the
principles of public law and in all moral aspects,
such interference in the internal affairs of a state
would be more inexcusable when she were united
with us in a confederation, than if she were in all
respects a foreign nation. And the difficulty of the
case is, that even if the endeavor were fairly made
to confine the agitation to the territorial question,
it would be impossible so to confine it in practice,
on the basis of opinion which characterizes the Re-
publican party, and gives it all its vitality.

FALSE RULE OF LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION
DY TUE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

2. The rule of moral right and duty which, I
think, may be fairly said to be generally adopted
by the Republican party, is stated by Mr. Seward,
in his speech at Lansing: " I will favor, as long as
I can," said he, ''within the limits of constitutional
action, the decrease and diminution of African
slavery in all the states."

THEORY' or THIS RILE.

The theory is, thac slavery is a wrong, without
reference to any condition of time, place, or cir-
cumstances; that the limit of our moral responsi-
bility for the wrong is fixed exactly according to
our legal and constitutional power to remove it ;
that it is, therefore, not only our right but our duty
to exert whatever legal or constitutional power we
possess for its removal.

This theory runs through all Mr. Seward's
speeches; and is, I think, the master-key to the
whole argument by which the Republican leaders
address the popular mind.

ITS PRACTICE.

The practical application and necessary conse-
quences of this theory, can be gleaned from the
speeches of Mr. Seward.

INDIRECT ACTION ON SLAVERY WITHIN THE STATES.

In his recent speech at Dubuque, he states what
it is not proposed to do, in this guarded manner :
" We do not votr against slavery in Virginia. We
do not authorize Abraham Lincoln or the Congress
ot the United States to [joss any hnvs about slavery
in Virginia." Observe how carefully his language
is framed not to disclaim any of the forms of indi-
rect action upon slavery within the states.

CHANGING THE CONSTITUTION BY EXCLUDING ONE
AND ADMITTING THE OTHER CLASS OP STATES.

In his Rochester speech he thus indicates the
constitutional mode of abohshmg slavery within the
states :

" It is true that tbey (the fathers) necessarily acd
wisely modified this policy of freedom, by leaving
it to the several states., affected as they were by
difTerent circumstances, to abolish slavery in
their own way and at their own pleasure instead of
confiding that duty to Congress.

******

" But the very nature of these modifications for-
tifies my position that the fathers knew that the
two systems could not endure ivithin the Uniov, and
expected that within a short period slavery would
disappear forever. Moreover, in order that these
modifications might not altogether defeat their
grand design of a republic maintaining universal
cjualit)/, they provided that two-thirds of the states
might amend the constitution.

•'It remains to say on this point only one word,
to guard against misapprehension. If these states
are to again become universally slaveholding, I do
not pretend to say with what violations of the
constitution that end shall be accomplished. On
the other hand, while I do confidently believe and
hope that my country will yet become a land of
universal freedom, I do not expect that it will
be made so otherwise than through the action of
the several states co-ojieratinci with the federal r:over'n-
ment, and all acting in strict conformity with their
respective constitutions."

The mode provided by the constitution for its own
amendment, is not accurately stated by Mr. Seward
in the above extract, but the plan of applying it so
as to abolish slavery within the states is sufficiently
disclosed. In a recent speech, he proposes to abso-
lutely exc'ude from admission into the Union all
new states having slaves, and to apply our northern
system to all new states ; evidently looking to the
multiplication of the free states until their number
shall enable them to alter the constitution and
" the grand design ot a republic maintiiining uni-
versal equality" shall be consummated, without
the consent and in defiance of the will of the south-
ern states.

UE-OKGANIZING THE SUPREME COURT.

In a speech in the Senate he proposed to reor-
ganize the Supreme Court of the United States for
the purpose of reversing the decision upon the rel-
ative rights of the states and their citizens on the
question of slavery.

DISBANDING THE ARMi" AND NAYT.

And at Lansing he declared that it was his " duty
as a patriot" to go for having "no army and navy"
of the Union, because their "whole object" was
" that slaves may not escape from the slave states
into the free, and that freed or emancipated negroes
in the free states may not ectsr and introduce civil
war into the slave states, and because that, if we
provoke a foreign enemy, the southern frontier is

exposed to invasion from England, France and
Spain." The constitution not only contains an
express covenant for the protection of each of the
states against " domestic violence" and foreign
" invasion," but in its preamble declares that to
"ensure domestic tranquillity" and "provide for
the common defence" were among the very objects
for which it was instituted. And yet Mr. Seward
avows the startling doctrine that for the very reason
that the army and navy are used to carry out these
objects in respect to the southern states they ought
to be disbanded.

BIDDING REVOLUTION " GOOD SPEED."

In his recent speech at Madison, he declares that
" it is by a simple rule that he has studied the con-
stitution," which rule is that " no human being,"
" no race," should be " kept down in their eflorts
to rise to a higher state of liberty and happiness ";
but that if any such " would rise, I say to them, in
God's name, good speed."

THE PRACTICAL RESULT.

The result he stated in a speech at an early day :
" It (slavery) can and must be abolished, and you
and I must do it."

OBJECT OF TEACHING THE DOCTRINE OF THE " IRRE-
PRESSIBLE CONFLICT."

And in order to incite the northern mind to a
crusade against slavery in the states, as well as the
territories, to blind the eye of the North and still
its conscience to the aggressive character of the
movement against the social and industrial systems
of our sister states, violating alike the express com-
pacts of the constitution and the principles of pub-
lic law which define the relations of independent
sovereignties, be adopts the fallacious theory in-
vented by Mr. Lincoln, of the " irrepressible con-
flict." He teaches not as a doctrine of abstract
philosophy, but a practical necessity, that the
northern states cannot preserve their own social
and industrial systems without overthrowing those
of the southern states; that " the rye fields and
wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must
be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture
and to the production of slaves, and Boston and
New York become once more markets for trade in
the bodies and souls of men," or, " the cotton and
rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar planta-
tions of Louisiana" be " tilled by free labor."
Having thus invested the crusade with all the
sanctions of the sacred necessity of self-defence,
he leads it forward, by the methods and means
which I have exhibited, through artful evasions of
the forms of the constitution to violate the sub-
stance of its obligations.

PREVALENCE OF IMPRACTICABLE IDEAS.

I certainly do not impute to every member of the
Rspublican party such sentiments. On the con-

trarj, tliere are large numbers of patriotic citizens j ture of slavery cannot long exist witbin the states
attached to that paitj wholly incapable of adopting if the powers of the federative government arc to
theories so wild, so fanatical, so revolutionary; and be swayed in active hostility to it, even though no
I admit, that even the mass of those who assent to violation ot the express letter of the constitution be

them, do not sec their true character, or the in-
evitable disasters of attempting to reduce them to
practice.
But, I cannot fail to see in the mind of every

perpetrated ; even though the hostile action be con-
fined to a systematic use of the powers of the gov-
ernment for the purposes of its destruction, and to a
systematic abdication of the powers of protection

second man I meet among the Republicans, the j when they incidentally affect slavery in operating

prevalence of ideas upon which it is impracticable
to administer a confederated government. I la-
ment it as a consequence of a division of parties, in
which the northern people know neither the sub-
ject of the controversy nor its true bearing, nor
their antagonists, except throu
tions.

MR. SEWAKD S UELATIOX TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

Mr. Seward represents the greatest state of the
Union in the Senate ; is of mature age and experi-
ence; and has more partisans and more practical j
power over the Republican mind and the Republi- i
can organization than any other one of its mem-
bers. He is Its representative man. He has recent- 1
ly traversed the northern states, with social revolu-
tion dropping from his lips at every step, amid the
acclamations of the masses of the Republican par-
ty. And yet men are found who ascribe to the pre-
judices of the South, or to misrepresentations ot
the aims of the Republican party, the complete
alienation and repulsion of the unanimous public
opinion ot the southern people, which undeniably
exists.

ORIGIN OF THESE FALSE SYSTEMS.

The origin of all this evil is in the rule of conduct
to which I have adverted, as generally adopted by
the Republicans, and indeed to a considerable ex-
teat accepted by the northern mind.

upon the communities in which it exists.

CRITERION OF MORAL RIGHT AND DUTY.

The rule to which I have adverted is equally fal-
lacious as a criterion of moral right and duty. No
I man has the right or duty to impose his own con-
their imagvna- j victions upon others, or to govern his own conduct
ia his relations with others, by his exclusive opin-
ion or will. His right and duty in such cases are
not absolute, but qualified. In practice, no man
can get along in his relations with others, even with
those who are most subject to him, if he exercise
his full legal or constitutional powers absolutely ac-
cording to his individual opinion or will. No bus-
band can live with his wife; no father with his
children ; no partner with his associates on such
terms.

DUTY OF SELF-RESTRAINT.

Now the idea I wish to inculcate is that there is
no moral wrong in our accepting the self-restraint
upon the exercise of even our undoubted legal and
constitutional powers which the experience of man-
kind has shown to be wise.

It is upon the same idea, applied to our physical
powers, that the public law of the world, which for-
bids the intervention of one state in the purely in-
ternal affairs of another, is built up.

RULE FOR CONSTRUING AND EXECUTING THE CONSTI-
TUTION.

IDEA OF SELF-RESTRAINT THE BASIS OP OUR FEDERJ
TIVE SYSTEM.

When our fathers entered upon the work of form-
ing the Union, they found the states existing as in-
dependent sovereignties. They might have con-
As a rule of right and duty for the construction structed a system which would have been imperial
and execution of the constitution, the theory main- m its character, subjecting all the internal affairs
tained by Mr. Seward, and tjo extensively accepted, i of the states to the dominion of a centralized gov-
is entirely fallacious. No contract governing com- ] ernment. Or they might have made the mixed sys-
plicated transactions or relations between men, and j tem which they established imperial in respect to
applying permanently through the changes mevita- j the subject of slavery within the states. Or, if
ble in human affairs, can be effectual if either party failing to obtain the consent of any state to such a
intended to be bound by it is at liberty to construe ' system, they might have excluded that state from
or execute its provisions in a spirit of hostihty to the Union.

the substantial objects of these provisions. Espe- 1 not wrong, but wise and right.

cially is this true of a compact of confederation be- j Did they commit a moral wrong in choosing to
tweenthe states, where there can be no common heave the whole subject of slavery within each state
arbiter invested with authorities and powers equal- j to its separate judgment? I think that they did
ly capable with those which courts possess between ; not. The decision which they made accorded with
individuals for determining and enforcing a just | the whole theory on which they constructed the
construction and execution of the instrument. Mr. i government. It was wise in itself. It was right.
Seward sees, the public mind of the South sees j If the wisdom collected from the experience of the
more clearly, that an institution of the peculiar na- I world in regard to government is to be relied on,

8

the distribution of powers they adopted was the
best, the depository of the trust of working out the
problem of the superior and subject races within the
states, if not perfect, was the safest which the na-
ture of the case admitted. It is binding upon us
not merely by the force of compact, not merely by
a great principle of public law, but by its intrinsic
wisdom and righteousness.

OBJECTION- ANSWERED.

It is no answer to this reasoning to say that
the dominant race in a state where slavery exists
is upon this question an interested party as well as
the judge. Such is the position of the governing
power in every human society ; and yet so wonder-
ful are the laws of mutual action and influence be-
tween the parts of the social mechanism that it has
generally been able to work out the welfare of all
better than foreign government, and better than
propagandism of any system by foreign force. The
selfishness of the one, modified by so many re-
straints, is rarely so dangerous as the inexpert ig-
norance and impracticable experiments of the oth-
ers. I cannot thick it a misfortune that, according
to the system of our fathers, no appeal lies from the
white man of the states where slavery exists to the
white man of the other states. It is not a moral
wrong to construe and execute the provisions of
the constitution affecting this question, and even to
extend and apply them to incidental questions not
foreseen at its formation, in accordance with the
plan, and in the spirit ot comprehensive wisdom in
which that instrument was conceived.

THE TERRITOIilAL QUESTION.

S. I come now to the position of the Republican
party on the territorial question. I understand that
position to be, that it is the right and duty of the
people, through the federative government, to ef-
fectually prevent the extension of slavery beyond
the geographical area in which it now exists within
the present states.

The Chicago platform applies the doctrine that
all men are entitled to liberty, to the black race,
without any qualification of place, time or circum-
stances ; and applies the principle of restriction to
all the territories. Mr. Seward has lately restated
the position of the Republican party, in these
words: "Our responsibilities are limited to the
states yet to come into the Union, and we will apply
our system to them."

Mr. Lincoln's speeches are full of denunciations
of "tfee further spread of slavery," the restriction
of which will, he predicts, " place it where the pub-
lic mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course
of ultimate extinction." " We know," says he,
" the opening of new countries tends to the perpetu-
ation of the institution, and so does keep men in
slavery who would otherwise be free." " Nothing,"
he again says, " will make you successful, but set-

ting up a policy which shall treat the thing as
wrong." * * * " This government is expressly
charged with the duty of providing for the general
welfare. We believe that the spreading out and
perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the
general welfare." *-»#«' To repress this
thing, we think, is providing for the general wel-
fare."

THEORY ON WHICH ABSOLUTE RESTRICTION IS FOrNDED.

The philosophical idea on which the policy of re-
striction rests is, that if the system of slavery be
absolutely confined to a fixed geographical area,
the emigration of the white race who wish to retain
the system, and of the black race held under it, will
be restrained ; that both races will go on increasing
by births ; that the population within that area be-
coming more and more dense, the cost of subsisting
the slave will press with constantly augmenting
force upon the value of his labor, until the master
ceases to derive any surplus, and voluntarily eman-
cipates the slave.

This idea is sometimes expressed in the affirma-
tive sense of extinguishing slavery ; and sometimes
in the negative -sense of refusing to perpetuate it;
but the means and the results are identical in both
cases.

OSJECT OF THE POLICT AND MODE OF ITS ENFORCE-
MENT.

The policy of restriction aims to control, directly
and immediately, the distribution between the oc-
cupied and unoccupied portions of the continent
belonging to us, of the eight and a half millions of
whites and four millions of blacks now co-existing
in the fifteen southern states and of all their de-
scendants, so long as the present relation between
the two races shall continue. It aims indirectly
and eventually to sabrert the relation which now
exists between the two races. The Republican par-
ty proposes to establish this policy by a combina-
tion of majorities of the people of the northern
state?, acting throush the federal government,
against the unanimous opposition of the whole
people of the fifteen southern states. The judg-
ment of the northern states, pure and simple, ad-
versely to the judgment of the southern states, is to
take upon itself, and prescribe and enforce its own
solution of this great problem ot races, their distri-
bution and relations, which reaches to the very
social life-centres of fifteen southern states.

A HERE ABSTRACTION AT FRESENT.

It is true that, at present, so far as the territories
are concerned, the policy is a mere theory. There
is no territory whose destiny is practically in dis-
pute. The area within the fifteen southern states
is more than the growth and expansion of the
social and industrial systems of the South can at
present occupy.

Migbt not the North rest in the hope that the
next generation, when it should have occasion to
act practically, would do so with larger experience
and greater wisdom? Might it not wait and pee '?
Is it necessary for us to seize the powers of the
government to establish and enforce any policy so
far in advance— especially, by the dangerous
machinery of a purely northern party creating in
practice a purely northern government— more
especially at the hazard of scattering in ruins the
glorious fabric of civil liberty reared by our
fathers ?

THE THEORY ANALYZED.

But let U5 confront this theory as a permanent
and final policy. Let us analyze it, and see what
would be its future value, and whether it can ever
become established.

NATURAL AND MATERIAL LAWS.

MATERIAL CAUSES ACCELERATE.

The great and steady influx of gold, acting upon
the circulating medium and the systems of credit,
has, to an extraordinary degree, stimulated produc-
tion and consumption throughout all Christendom.
One effect is seen in the transcendent growth of the
foreign trade of all the civilized nations. Another
is in an improvement of the physical condition of
the masses, and an enlargement of their command
over the necessaries, comforts and even luxuries of
life, greater, perhaps, than they have hitherto at-
tained in any one century.

Cotton has been found to be the cheapest and

most convenient material for human clothing;

which, after food and shelter, is the first object of

the enlarged means of expenditure by the masses.

The spindle and the loom could be multiplied to

keep pace with the augmenting demand; but negro

hands to cultivate the cotton fields could not. They

Before entering on that discussion, I pause to I must wait the slow course ot nature, or be diverted

trace the natural and material laws which are work- ' from other employments ; and even both resources

ing out the distribution of races on our own portion have been thus far insufficient. Through the war

of this continent, and shaping the social and indus-
trial systems of the new states.
Whoever, will study the course of emigration

in the Crimea and the war in Italy, through the
panic of 1854 and the revulsion of 1357, cotton has,
in the main, held the even tenor of its way, in a

from the old states to the unsettled lands of the ! range of high prices; while iron, coal, lum-
"West, will find that in the main it follows the adap- j ber, ,sugar and breadstuffs have undergone ex-
tations of thenew region to the industrial, domes- treme and violent fluctuations. Cotton has been
tic and social habitudes of those who seek to bet- | unceasingly out-bidding other employments for
ter their condition by the use of cheaper and richer ! negro hands. It has within ten years doubled, pro-
soils. The current of northern emigration does ' bably more than doubled the market value of all

not deviate largely from certain parallels of lati-
tude. The current of soutberu emigration, tend-
ing in the same general direction, spreads out,
perhaps deflects to the southwest. The volume of
the northern current is from twice to three times
as large as that of the southern current; and.

such labor. A man who to-day employs slaves in
raising wheat or corn on the southern bank of the
Ohio, uses labor at least twice as costly as it was
ten years ago. His neighbor on the northern
bank finds the moderate advance in free labor re-
sulting from the increase in general prices, com-

therefore, tends to press southwardly the line ! pensated by improved machinery ; and can produce
where the two touch each other. Geographical I wheat as cheaply as ten years ago.

causes fiivor this result. As you reach the eastern
border of Texas, the Gulf shore turns towards the
South. As you pass Missouri you begin to ascend

Cotton is struggling hard to translate the black
race held in slavery to the scats of its own and
kindred cultures. Family and social habits, an

to the more austere climates of the great slope of! honorable sentiment against selling dependants to-
the Rocky Mountains.

Material causes intervene to turn a portion of the
southern emigration to the southwest and also to
separate the element of slavery and to carry that to
the southwest.

SLAVERY WITODRAWS FROM THE TRACK OF NORTHERN
EMIGRATION.

The result is that slavery has no tendency to ex-
tend itself in or towards the track of northern set-
tlers. On the contrary, it is withdrawing and
moving towards the tropics. Obvious before, this
law has been rendered more conspicuous and more
potential to mature its fruits rapidly, by the re-
markable events which have characterized the last
ten or fifteen years.

wards whom the worth and piety of the South con-
sider themselves as trustees, resists; but the
changes of life are inevitable; and the social laws
at last prevail, as the unceasing current of a stream
outlasts the strokes of the swimmer. I see every
day testimonies of the actual working of these ten-
dencies. I read, not long ago, in the Evening Post,
an extract from the St. Louis Democrat, stating that
one hundred slaves daily left St. Louis for the South.
That statement may have been inaccurate as a mat-
ter of detail; but the general fact cannot be ques-
tioned.

RESTRICTION IN THE TRACK OF SOUTHERN EMIGRA-
TION.

If, then, slavery has no capacity to extend itself,
in any practical degree, into or towards the track

10

of northern emigration ; let us now inquire what
would be the results of the restrictive policy ap-
plied to the track of southern emigration.

This, I have already observed, is, at present-
perhaps for all our generation— a purely theoretical
question. But let us imagine that it were now a
practical question. Let us suppose that all the
eight and a half millions of whites and four millions
of blacks composing the population of the fifteen
southern states were concentrated in the region east
of the boundary between Alabama and Mississippi.

I do not now decide whether the degree of density
required for the perfection of the experiment would
even then have been attained; and, in the progress
towards that density, doubtless the whites not hold-
ing slaves would have been, to a large extent, ex-
pelled. But assume the conditions to be such that
the cost of subsisting the slave would approach the
value of his labor. I would like to have our philoso-
phers and philanthropists who advise the expe-
riment solve some difEcultigs which we must antici-
pate.

IMPRACTICADLE OR UXXECESSART.

1. What is there in human history to warrant the
idea that a people, not having yet consented to self-
destruction, could be confined on one side of an
imaginary line, with their physical condition stea-
dily approximating to the want and misery'which
attend excessive density of population, when on the
other side of that imaginary line, unoccupied and
fertile lauds invite them to abundance and prospe-
rity? What degree of power in the government
would be required to enforce a law imposing such a
policy upon even a feeble community '? What de-
gree of coercion would be required against eight
and a half millions of our race ? three times as many
as achieved our revolution? Against how many and
in what proportions of the two races such coercion
would have to be exerted when all the present ter-
ritory should be filled up with population to the re-
quisite degree of density, it is impossible to pre-
dict ; but it is perfectly safe to say that the policy
proposed by the Republican party to be theoreti-
cally adopted aa a finality, at vast hazard of general
ruin, a generation in advance of the time when it
could take full practical effect, would, as soon as
that time should arrive, prove wholly impractica-
ble without the consent of the people to whom it
would be applied : as with that consent it would be
wholly unnecessary.

Is it expected that the people to whom the sys-
tem IS to be applied will be blind and deaf until it
shall have approached such fatal results? Is it not
inevitable that they will be as prompt to resist and
repel as you will be to organize and infiict your
system ?

FALSE PHILANTHROPY.

2. Does not the nature of the process imply a
constantly progressive deterioration in the physical

condition of the slave? Will not the master be
forced by the necessity of self-preservation into a
struggle to over-work and under-feed the slave,
until, failing to make the products of labor meet
the cost of subsisting the laborer, he succumbs ;
and the social and industrial s}' stems topple in com-
mon ruin ? Has not philanthropy run mad when it
proposes to work out the liberation of the slave by
such a process? Does it not arrogate to itself the
infallibility of Divine wisdom, when out of humanity
to the slave, it would, by force of law, starve him
into freedom ?

Does it not arrogate to itself the power of the Al-
might}' when it attempts to establish such a system
over fifteen communities with complete govern-
ments, with a population of twelve and a half mil-
lions, and occupying a region larger than half of
Europe, by external legislation enforced by exter-
nal power? If no government known to history
has ever been strong enough to do this thing, what
terms can adequately characterize the wild hallu-
cination of attempting it through the limited pow-
ers and under the self-checking forms of confedera-
tion?

3. As the policy operates to restrain the emigra-
tion of the owner and the slave, but not the white
man who holds no slaves, must not the eifect
be to cause the latter to emigrate? Must not
the proportion of the black race to tbe white
be incessantly increasing by the operation of
a permanent cause V At last, when the sys-
i tern culminates in emancipation, must not the
I result be communities almost exclusively of blacks?
I Can the whites live in such communities? Should
we not, in the ultimate effects of the restrictive
I policy, convert our sister states into negro govern-
I ments? Will we then allow tlieni equality in our
Union, as our Republican friends propose at the
i coming election to allow the blacks of Ibis state
! equality in the elective franchise ? Would it not,
; on the whole, be better to let the black man go
j towards the tropics as best he may, bond or free,
1 so that, if at last we come to dissolve our Union,
the dissolution may be only with the black repub-
lics of the tropics ; and we may at least retain the
j original thirteen who fought the battle of our in-
I dependence, and the riparian states that control
i the navigation of the Mississippi, with white men
I for the governing power ?

I 4. Have we sufficiently considered whether act-
[ ing upon slavery in the territories, in order to react
I upon it within the states, even if it were within our
I literal authority, would not be in some sort a fraud
'' on the distribution of powers provided by the con-
I stitut'on ? May a man get the Street Commissioner
to wall up the entrance to my house on the pretext
.that it is only exercising the rights of the public

over the streets which belong to the public? May

11

my neighbor flood my farm because the dam which
creiites the overflow is built upon his owa Und?
May a man plant bis foot firmly on the safety-valve
and silence the engineer by saying that he does not
interfere with the boiler? Now is not the natural
increase bj' which one hundred and twenty thou-
sand are every year added to the slave population
as much a necessity as the existence of the present
four millions'? Is not another fourmillions of blacks
within the next twenty-five years just as much a
fact as the present four millions? Can any man
stop it ? Is not the fact which is to come an inevita-
ble incident to the fact which now exists? Must it
not be dealt with as a part of the one great fact ?
To ignore this inevitable incident, is it not shallow
in philosophy, inadequate in policy, disastrous
failure in government? x\nd to whom naturally
belongs the solution of the problem it creates, ex-
cept to those communities who have the great trust
of the principal fact and whom we do not propose
even to consult? Ought we to refuse even to join
with ourselves in determining such a question,
those who must reap the good or bear the ill of our
decision in a case which, so far as the track of south-
ern emigration is concerned, cannot effect us in the
least? Should we attempt to establish over them
a policy — even if we sincerely think it best for them
—which nobody among them can be found to ap-
prove or uphold ?

5. Would not a wise man, with a conscientious
sense of responsibility, although theoretically op-
posed to slavery, if he were to be invested with ab-
solute power over the primary fact of slavery with-
in the states, or of the incidental fact of its natural
growth, find himself unable, just in proportion as
he should study these facts, to deal with them on
any artificial system of human devising? Weil
might Mr. Seward say that John Quincy Adams
died despairing of a peaceful solution of the ques-
tion ; for he had not, as Mr. Seward has not, any of
that master-philosophy for such a problem, which
says to the federal government, Let it alone.

<;. If in the attempt to solve this problem accord-
ing to our own ideas, and to enforce our solution
through the federative government, adversely to
the whole public opinion of the southern states, we
should break up the constitutional compact between
us, should we not fail of establishing our policy
with its imaginarybenefits, while we should become
the authors of the most transcendent calamity any
generation has ever been able to inflict upon man-
kind ?

POLICT OF THE FATHERS. j

The traditional policy of our government, estab-
lished by the lathers, and followed until 1850, is to i
be studied in all the acts of Congress upon the sub- !
ject of slavery considered collectively. i

It wa3 :

j 1st. To prohibit slavery by federal legislation, at
the instance of the North, and with the consent of

.the South, in the territories lying substantially
within the track of northern emigration.

j 2d. To leave the territories lying in the track of
southern emigration without any federal legislation
prohibiting slavery.

The ordinance of 1787, applying the restriction
to all territories north of the Ohio, and the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, applying it to all territories
north of the southern line of Missouri, were the

j parent measures, to which all the other acts were

! subordinate. None of the other acts of restriction
extended their operation south of the lines estab-

! lisbed by those measures.

At the adoption of the constitution the southern

I states consisted of a scattering population upon the

i eastern slopes of the Alleganies. All the people in
the region now embraced in states lying west of the
ridge did not much exceed the number of persons
to-day congregated in a single ward of the city of
New York.

Emigration has pushed westward until
almost two-thirds of the present population
of the South is in a region which seven-
ty years ago was a wilderness. On the west of
Virginia has sprung up Kentucky ; on the west of
North Carolina, Tennessee ; on the west of Georgia
and South Carolina, Alabama, and aftJrwards Mis-
sissippi— all formed out of the original domain of
the United States.

An entire tier of states on the west bank of the
Mississippi, comprising Louisiana, Arkansas and
Missouri have been added out of Mr. Jefferson's Lou-
isiana purchase. This tier embraces the whole track
of the southern emigration, extending to the North
even beyond that track. It carries the divisional
line in the west, which had been deflected to the
south by the adoption of the diagonal course of the
Ohio, back to a point somewhat northerly of the
line which has become the boundary between the
free and the slave systems in the original states, by
the voluntary action of those states. Florida
on the south and Texas on the southwest have
been subsequently added.

Now, in all this region, embracing the entire
track of the southern emigration, there has been
no legislation of the federative government inter-
fering with the natural course of southern emigra-
tion, or disturbing the action of the physical laws
by which it is governed, or preventing the establish-
ment by the new communities thus formed of in-
dustrial and social systems, similar to those of the
states from which the emigration proceeded.

THEIR SELF-UE3THAIXT VOLUXTART.

I know the idea is inculcated that the government
has abstained from such legislation only from defect
of power or in submission to actual compact.

12

To this I answer, fird, that if this allegation were
true, it would show that the policy of universal re-
striclion of slavery, which has been ascribed to the
fathers, was, at best, but a theory, never reduced to
practice ; nor of much weight as indicating the
matured judgment as to practical legislation of
statesmen who were never called on to put a specu-
lative opinion into operation, or of the people who
were never called on to submit to its effects ;
secondly, that there is no foundation whatever for
the allegation that the fathers would have applied
the restrictive system to the track of southern emi-
gration, if they could ; or that they omitted to do so
from any such necessity as is pretended, or from
any reason other than their ideas of the self-
retraint which a wise policy imposes on practical
statesmen dealing with such a question. They had
RVBTj means, method and power opea to their use
which have been proposed to be employed for that
purpose in our modern times. I say this advisedly ;
and though I cannot now stop to discuss details, I
hold myself ready to maintain the statement.

Washington, Jefferson and Madison, all Virgini-
ans, were undoubtedly opposed in theory to slavery,
and looked forward to its ultimate extinction ; but
they were practical statesmen, and they did not
make any serious endeavors to surmount the intrin-
sic difficulties of the subject, either in Virginia or
Kentucky, where it was open to their legal and con-
stitutional action, still less in southern territories
through the federative government. They proba-
bly were never able to see clearly any satisfactory
method and means of giving effect to their desires,
even in the infancy of the institution; and they
wisely left it to itself until the people interested
should feel themselves able to solve the problem.
No men had more power to have changed the practi-
cal policy and practical results which I have shown
to be facts of our history. That policy grew up and
matured its fruits during the period of their ad-
ministrations, and of their unapproachable influ-
ence over the public mind of this countr.y, without
opposition or dissent from them, often with their
concurrence. Jefferson and Madison survived the
time of the Missouri controversy ; were then in
retirement, free from all bias of political aspiration,
sedulous only for the welfare and happiness of
their country ; and certainly not wanting in philan-
thropy towards any of the human race. They
have both left on record their earnest, thoughtful,
warning protest against the whole scheme of
applying through federal legislation the restrictive
system to southern territory, contrary to the will
of the existing southern states. That a party
organization exclusively northern, dominating in
the federal government, should enforce such a
system was never within their contemplation. That
fact, if it shall be to-day inevitable, will be the
political calamity of a later generation.

MODE AXD TERMS OF ADJUSTING THE COXTROVERSY.

I assertthat a controversy between powerful com-
munities organized into governments, of a nature
like that which now divides the Noith and South,
can be settled only by convention or by war. I
j affirm this upon the universal principles of human
nature, and the collective experience of all man-
I kind. I aver it, in defiance of the babbling
I speech-makers who set up for statesmen without
! possessing or understanding one element of that
j character; who pretend to superiority of principle,
I because they denounce compromise, which is, in
I the very nature of things, the only solution possi-
j ble of such a difference between such parlies.

By convention, I mean, not an ancient compact
! of confederation, but a fresh, living, practical as-
■ sent of the wills of the parties to conditions in
1 which those wills are moderately and fairly repre-
I sented, so that the acquiescence of both parties
' may be secured.

I INTERESTS OF THE PARTIES.

We must study the practical interests of both
I parties in the questions, in order to see what con-
' ditions will be adequate. The elements of the
' case are simple.

The northern states have a direct and important
interest in keeping the natural course of their emi-
I gration into the territories substantially undia-
i turbed, with freedom to such of their people as over-
; flow into the territories to establish in their new
' seats such systems of industry- and society as they
have been accustomed to at home.

The southern states have exactly tne same inter-
i est. Both have an indirect interest in the forma-
' tion of new states, as it effects the balance of power
I between the two classes in the confederation.

Now in respect to the first interest, so long
as the federal government refrains from in-
terference, there is really no conflict except in
imagination. For as long a future as the hu-
man vision can clearly scan, both have room
enough, and they do not desire to occupy the
same space. Slavery not only refuses to go
into or towards the track of the northern settlers in
the territories, but withdraws faster than white la-
bor can replace it in the territories and contiguous
parts of adjacent states.

At an early period southern settlers touched the
parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, which en-
croached upon their track, sooner than northern
settlers reached any portion of those states ; and a
feeble disposition to carry slavery there was mani-
fested, but it was inelfectual.

The only other tendency to conflict arose on the
border of Kansas, contiguous to Missouri. The
divisional line established by the admission of Mis-
souri with slavery, and the restriction of slavery
from the territories west of it down to its southern-

18

most boundary, became at this point perpendicular
to the natural line of division between the two
westward streams of emigraliou. It would not
have been strange, therefore, if some settlers had
crossed the bouudary between tbe two with slav-
ery ; but, it could gain no stable footing there; for
the tendency for it to move down southward from
Missouri was stronger than for it to ascend west-
ward iuto Kansas. And a vast emigration from
the nortberu hives was swarming towards botb.

It ismy well-coDsidered couviction that not one
slate i^ MOW free Irom slaver}^ which would bave
accepted it if no restricliou by federal legislation
had ever been enacted. '

FOKMS OF COMPUOMISE.

Compromise of the territorial question has two
forms. The one is by a divisional line practically
agreed upon by the two sections, and declared by
act of Congress. The other is worked out by natu-
ral and material causes, and finally declared by each
locality vvben it is admitted as a state.

As an oiiginal question, I think the latier mode
the best; for it avoids tbe struggle in fixing the
line by the federative government; and it willmore
exactly respect the natural courses of emigration.

As to the interest of the two parties in the bal-
ance of power in tbe confederated government, the
North certainly has nothing to fear. It gains in po-
pulation at least seven hundred thousand as olten
as the South gains three hundred thousand, and it
can form new states more rapidly, it has the ad-
vantage of greater numbers. The South, when at-
tacked, has the advantage of greater unity.

UNION OR DISDNIOX.

Can tbe North understand tbe full import of the
federative idea"? Can it apply that idea completely
to all the relations of the slavery question?

That is tbe problem of the contmued existence
of our Union iu a government et confederated states.
Majorities ia all the northern states against all tbe
South are not without extreme ditSculty formed or
combined, and being whollj' unnatural, caanct last
long enough to dictate or to fashion a permanent
policy forlbe Union.

Such a result could never be reached except amid
an extraordinary concurrence of circumstance!;,
and in an entire failure of the northern people to
see that tbe conflict is anything more to the south-
ern people than it appears to be in the North— an
ordinary struggle of political parties. This state of
parties is only a paroxysm. Yet tbe North may, in
a paroxysm, alarm and repel the South out of tbe
Union.

LOGICAL RESULT AFTER DISUNION.

If it should do so, and if we should yet escape or
recover from civil war, would we not soon wish to
establish treaties of peace — of free trade between
them and us— of unobstructed intercourse between
our citizens? Might we not even desire an alliance
for common defence ? Is it not elear that such ar-
rangements would be eminently wise and emmently
conducive to the prosperity aod welfare of both
parties? would not such an arrangement be a salu-
tary extension and improvement of the sjstem
which modern civilization isappljing by diplomacy
between independent nations all over the world?

If these results were onc3 successfully accom-
plished we should bave restored an imperfect ap-
jiroach, poor and miserable indeed — far worse than
the old confederation— to what our great forefathers
intended in our federative government, which they
framed and which we shall have broken into pieces ;
in that case should we have any idea that it
would be either our moral right or duty to inter-

fere, in any manner, with slavery within their bor»
ders, or to suppress, by force, the natural growth
of new commuuiiies like their own by the inevit-
able increase of their population?

Is it necessary for us to travel through all this
drearjr cycle to reach a result which it is just aa
wise, just as necessary for us now to adopt?
Through what human misery, what individual ruin,
what public calamity', would we then have at-
tained a compulsory, and no doubt contented, in-
action as to slavery in all those aspects in which it
now makes us fanatical.

I say contented inaction; for in that case we
should see and feel, that it was no more our moral
right or duty to interfere with slavery in a southern
state or territory than in tbe Empire of Brazil. We
I should thus, over the ruins of our confederated
government, have been brought to some sense of
the true theory of lecal self-government under our
federal constitution. Our misfortune would be
that our wisdom had come too late.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION.

It is with reluctance that I mingle one word of a
personal nature in this discussion. But I must an-
swer my personal friends of the Evening Post,
who have coutteouslj- invited this discussion, so
far as to say that I never held any opinion which
could justify either the policy or the organization of
tbe Republican party. If 1 had done so, I should
not hesitate to frankly renounce so grave an error.
I admit consistency, so far as it indicates conscien-
tious deliberation and prudence in adopting:opiniou3
or in conduct, to be a quality which inspires con-
fidence. But I do not consider it so great a virtue
as a fixed purpose to do right; and a single modifica-
tion in a man's opinions on one of the questions
j which have occupied the public mind during the
j period of twenty-live years, ought not to shake an
established character for consistency, especially if
I itbemoderate.reasonableandfreefrom every taintof
j selfishness. i5ut,in truth, I never adopted the doc-
j trine of absolute and universal exclusion, by federal
; legislation, of slavery Irom all territories, and still
i less that of the exclusion of new slave states; or the
I philosophical theory on which the doctrines are
, founded.

Mr. Greeley, last fall, detailed and repeated his
[ personal recollection ofthe anti-Texas meeting of '44
I at the Tabernacle, in which, as he alleged, 1 joined
\ with him. His obvious motive was to embitter
against me tbe resentments of Republicans who
i oLice belonged to the school of radical democracy.
A candidate, when under tbe actual circumstances,
as was known to the geutlcmaa at whose instance
I was nominated, and all my friends, that an elec-
tion would have been a calamity to me, I felt at
\ liberty to treat this mis statement— m'sreccUec-
. tion, as I am willing to believe it — as I treaud
I all similar ores of the canvass, with silent
! indifierence. In 18-14 I was strongly in-
clined to the theory iu respect to the tendency
of slaveiy to confine itself to us own natural track,
which sat)sequent reflection has established in my
mind, and which I have developr^in this letter ;
and I neither said nor did aajthuig inconsistent
with it. I thought then that the question ought to
; be decided, not on the ideas either of New Eng-
1 land or of Mr. Cdlhoun, but on general considert-
i tions of national policy ; that the ac(|uisition of
1 Texas was expedient, but ought to be conducted iu
; a prudent and proper manner. The nrovincial
! ideas of New England were not more offended by
that measure than by the acquisition of Louisiana.
I They did not so strongly threaten to dissolve the
\ Uu'on, as they did on the same grounds, when the

1^

act was accomplished which gave the Mississippi to I
u3 all, and to the North, Iowa, Minnesota and the I
territories stretching to the Pacitic. I presume '
that those from whom I then differed, and who now
impeach my consistency, will advise a civil war to j
keep Texas and her kindred states in the Union if!
they should now attempt to go out.

On the acquisition of California, the North univer- 1
saliy claimed that its statu.9 should not be changed j
b3" the act of the federal government. That:
was then the leading idea of the radical demo- i
crals of this state, as expressed in their ;
most authentic and authoritative declara- i
tion. In assenting to that abstract idea, be-
yond which I never individnally went, I did so '
in a sense of equitable partition, under which we
had justified our acceptance of Texas ; and might j
accept Cuba — an abstract idea, however, which it :
was soon seen could not afford a perfect eolution of '•
the whole question in all its future aspects and ap-
plications, and which at that time was practically
satisfied by the admission of California. Since that
time the increasing development of the tendency '
of slavery to withdraw from even a contiguity to
the track of northern emigration, and the immense |
influx of population from abroad ought to convince j
every reflecting mind that whatever legal theory is 1
adopted, our old habit of federal restriction over '
our poriion of the territories can be safely aban- j
doned, while any theory which should interfere '
with the track of southern emigration cannot be |
safely or rightfully appUed by the legislation of the
federal government.

The division in the democratic party of this state
in 1S4S bears no analogy to the Republican organi-
zation of today. It would not have happenedj ex-
cept for what was deemed to be a violation of the :
right of representation in a national convention ; j
and the division was the year after composed, while j
the slavery question was still unsettled. Wise or I
unwise, right or wrong, it was in substance a mere
protest. It is known that my personal wish then
was, that its form should not bave gone beyond its
true practical character. The scheme of a perma-
nent northern party was not, so far as I know, en-
tertaioed among the radical democrats, except in
tbe mind of one man, with whom it was a mere un-
developed idea, soon abandoned, but resumed in
1855, when he led his followers into the Republican
camp. The worst consequence of the division in j
1848 was, not like the division of the democratic
paity now, to bring in a sectional candidate {
of a sectional party, but merely to let in a
national party, with Taylor and Fillmore at [
its head, under whom the shivery questions were |
all wisely compromised. On that adjustment I have ,
ever stood. 'Willing to accept tbe modem policy of
total federal non-uction in place of the system I
of division by federal legislatioD, I nevertheless
used all my intiueoce, at whatever sacritice of rela-
tions, to resist the raising of the question of the re- '
peal of tbe Missouri Compromise, because 1 thought
a theoretical conformity to even a wise s} s'em dear- i
ly I)urcbased by l^-eaking tbe tradition of ani-ient
pacification on siBh a question and between such
parties. At the same time, merely a private citizen '
mjself, I appreciate the difficulty a public man has
in" acting against a general principle for the sake of
merely i>rudential considerations, especially amid a i
conflict of sections and of parties. I foresaw on '
tbe formation of th« Republican party, the evils and '
dangers which it would create, if it should succeed, '
as it could not have done wi'hotit great advent tinus
aids, in combining hu" unbroken mass of northern
majorities ; and 1 communicated my opinion to for-
mer political associates who joined the new organ- !

ization. It is known to many that my whole action
since has been dictated by this conviction. I have
gone through this explanation on an invitation from
those who were once my political as well as person-
al friends, in order to demonstrate that I have every
right to be heard by them, fairly and candidly, when
I now state the hmitations of our rights and duties.

Let me say a' so that it was natural that on the
happening of the events which gave rise to these
questions, the northern mind should at first apply
to them— ;oo loosely and broadly I admit — the ideas
which it had been accustomed to apply to the
subject of slavery at home; ideas whichthe pro-
gress of events and the maturing of opinion have
shown must be greatly limited in their application
in order to adapt them to the theory of our federa-
tive system.

Let me add, that in renouncing the habit of fede-
ral kgislation as to slavery in which we all grew
up, and advocating the idea of federal non inter-
ference with the industrial sj'stem of the South, I
but conform to that sound political philosophy
which, upon all the g^eat industrial questions of
our times, has always guided not myself alone, but
ail radical democrats; and which the Evening Post,
ill all cases, with this single inconsistent, disastrous
exception, even now applies and ably champions in
conspicuous antagonism to the entire political theo-
ry and persistent practice of the party with which
it IS now, in my judgment, unnaturally, and there-
fore, I hope, but temporarily associated.

COXCI.DSIONS.

My conclusions are :

1. That the southern states will not, by any pos-
sibility, accept the avowed creed of the Republican
party as the permanent policy of the federative
government as to slavery, either in the states or ter-
ritories; and,

2. That upon this creed the Republican party will
not establish any affiliations with considerable mi-
norities in the souihern states.

All the evidence is that the non-slavehold-
ers are, generally, at least, as hostile to the
Repubhcan creed as the slaveholders. All expe-
rience shows thiit an interest very (ar less ex-
tensive, important and fundamental ihan that of the
slaveholders in the South, usually unites the whole
local community in its support, especiall}' against
outside mttrfereiice. And in this case, besides,
there is a powerful motive, common to all, to pre-
serve the social saprtmacy of their race. The
very attempt to organize, by outside instigation, a
separate class of non-slaveholders against the gene-
ral opinion of these communities, would be itself a
new and intolerable irritation. The dream of a Re-
publican party in the South is a mere illusion.

ii. A condi-uoH of parlies in which the lederative
government shall be carried on by a party having
no afliliations in the southern stales, is impossible
to continue. Such a government would be out of
all relation to those states. It would have neither
the nerves of sensation, which convey intelligence
to the intellect of the body politic, nor the liga-
ments and muscles which hold its parts toj^ether,
and move them iu harmony. It would be in sub-
stance tbe goveinmeut of one people by another
petiple. That system will cot do with our rucp-
The fifteen organized states to be subjected to it
now occupy a region as large as Prance, Italy, tbe
Austrian Kmpire, the German s'ates, and the Brit-
ish Isles. In my judgment, such a condition of
things could not beccmie comiilete in all the depart-
ments of the government, betore the antognnijin of
the minoti'y would throw ofl' the government, by
secession from tbe Union.

15

4. Nothing short of the recession of the Republi- 1
can party to the point of total and absolute non- 1
action on the subject of slavery in the states and !
territories could enable it to reconcile to itself the ;
people of the South. Even then it would have [
great and tixed antipathies to overcome ; and men i
and parties act chiefly from habit. i

o. Will the Republican party submit itself to this
inevitablt^ necessity to revoluiionize its whole char- j
acter"? To attempt this change and not to perish
as a dominant party is barely possible. Not to at- !
tempt and accomplish it and jtt to live as an as-
cendant power in our Union is totally impossible. ;
The Republican party must become as national in i
its stucture as the whig party was, and svtbmit to !
the necessary conditions of such nationality, in '
order to be capable of governing the country. It i
must travel through the entire cycle of retrogres- I
sion, and demonstrate that its existence in its ore- '
sent form was a mistake. The national whig party, "
if it had not been disbanded, might mnch sooner i
and more easily have taken the government, and ;
could hare done everything whicti is possible for ;
the Republican party to accomplish without diosolv- i
ing the Union.

0. The election of Mr. Lincoln, if it should occur, i
will place the Executive head of the federal govern- i
ment in the false and unnatural position I have de-
picted ; that is to say, place it out of all relation to :
the people of tilteen states.

To the eyes of these states it appears as the fore- ;
runner of a complete system of the same character j
in the federal government. It fills their people with [
alarm; it excites strong resenim«nts.

It will be a small alleviation that the result will :
have come about in some degree by divisions in the !
democratic party ; and by dexterous use of electo-
ral forms, \vtiereby the northern majorities will con-
stitute little over one-tbird of the whole vote cast. :

It will be a greater aileriation. if the House of
Representatives should change adversely to the
Republican party.

7. Our noitbern people look at this thing in the
light of tiie ideas which prepossess their own minds. :
Tbey overlook one fact which renders the position
of the parties unequal — the fact that slavery exists
at the South and not at the Isortb. They claim
equality in the operition of their ideas with those
ot the other party, which is in many respects pecu-
liarly and exclusively affected by their operation.

They ask, have we not a right to elect a President
in a coDstitutionalmannerby ourvotesV You have,
in obedience to the fundamental ideas of our con-
federation, no more moral rightto do so on the basis
of your present party organiy^tion than you have |
to "do a thousand other things which the laws and '
constitution allow, but which reason, justice, public
policy and fraternal sympathy forbid.

The South gave us Washinator, Jefferson, Madi-
son, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Taylor, and we voted
for them all. We oiler them Lincoln, and they say \
they cannot vote for him because his policy is fatal
to what, to tbem, is a vital interest, while to as it is
but an abstract idea. We answer that we know ;
better than tbey ; if they will not agree with us we '
will not compromise, we will have our own way !

S. A southern partisan presidency on such a con-
troversy, in unison with the southern state govern- '
ments, would be an evil, even if unavoidable ; but
it would merely offend the iJeas of the North. A !
northern partisan presidency on such a controversy, I
in conflict with the southern state governments, "is
manifestly pregnant with perils which no past ex-
perience " has witnessed, and which threaten the
whole fabric of our Union with swift destruction.

9. If we are not wise enough to abstain from

creating such a state of things, what right have we
to suppose the South will accept it with patience?
Seeing the transcendent nature of the interest— tbey
have not the restraint of a patty among them hold-
ing the sentiments of the northern majority — they
think that they are wronged— tbey feel put upon
self-defence. Have we a right to assume that tbey
will act with what, from our point of view, would
be a prudent moderation V

I fear that irom the very election of Mr. Lincoln,
if it should unformnafely happen, we should be em-
barked upon a frightful agitation in all the South —
general alarm and excitenient — state conventions
to deliberate upon the continuance of the Union. I
recoil from contemplating the but too probable con-
sequences in which all this must end. I know that
the most wise, prudent, conservative and patriotic
men of the most Union-loving stjites of the South
are filled with consternation when tbey think the
great surge of popular excitement which they will
be called on to breast.

10. What will Mr. Lincoln do? Can he be ex-
pected, as President, to uodtrstand the state of
things in any other sense than that of bis own par-
tisan policy? Can he avoid the attempt to main-
tain the power of his party by the same means
\yhicli will have acquired it? Can be emancipate
himself from the dominion of the ideas, associations
and influences which will have accompanied him in
his rise to power? Can he be expected to act in any
new direction with sufficient breadth of view and
firmness of purpose?

If he shall fail adequately to respond to these
great exigencies, the inevitable result as it presents
itself to ray judgment has been already sufficiently
indicated.

11. If he should act in a spirit ef large patriot-
ism what will be his position and means ?

The history of Jackson's administration throws
some light upon the difficulties which, in a vastly
aggravated form, he may have to encounter, and
npon the methods of action by which, if at all, they
must be overcome.

Jackson had to deal with a question compara-
tively unimportant and far less purely sectional.
As a southern man of great popularity and renown,
he stood strong in the confidence of all the southern
people whose votes had just contributed to raise
him to power. He was the he-.vd of a strong Jack-
sonian party organization in every southern state.
Clay, the head of the adverse tariff interest, was
also a sontheru man, and at the same time the head
of a great party in all those states. And yei, with
all these immeBse advantages, Jackson, because the
controversy was partly sectional, was compelled to
exert all his power and to display all his courage
in order, with the aid of Clay and' Webster, to ac-
complish its adjustment, even upon a basis of com-
promise and concession, and be accomplished this
result at last by fighting the b;itt)e through thepub-
: lie opinion of the disaffected fttction.

Lincoln, if he should, in a crisis far more difficult,
stand in the place of Jacksoo, to confront a public
; disorder infinitely more extensive, deeply seated
■ and dangerous — as he should s'retch his eye a
thouBand miles ovpr the region of disaffection,
would see not one adherent ; not one leader of local
' opinion with whom he was in ts'ablisbed relations of
friendship, sympa'hy or support ; not one repre-
j sentative to speak in bis name, with power to win
! the ear of the masses; not one of six hundred uews-
i papers devoted to politics, and half that number
j devoted to other discussions, which bad not been
i preoccupying the minds of the people with dis-
trust, hatred, or fear of him. Without any of the
[ means by which combats of opinion are fought

16

among a free people, himself an offence, an obstrac- i
tiou, instead of a power to save— the whole strain, I
the whole shock of the crisis would be thrown
upon the mere intrinsic strength of our federal i
government. |

I cannot, for one, assent to the creation of such |
a state of things. I have a faith in our popular ;
system, which never before faltered^ but I claie not :
precipitate it upon such a trial. It is not a fair ex-
periment. In my judgment, those who thtnk it free
from the most imminent peril, display the courage ;
of men who having eyes cannot see. An incredu-
lity, even more serene and stubborn, in the minds i
of monarchs, ministers and peoples, has often been j
broken by revolution or by war. Such a crisis as i
that in which Lincoln's election would place our
country can only be prudently treated after fully I
comprehending it. History is full of illustrations j
of the inadequate policy which meets civil convul-
sions, step by step, with concessions, at every stage, !
insufficient and too late, because the authors of the '
2>olicy could not anticipate events, and events |
would not wait. |

Elect Lincoln, and we invite those perils which i
we cannot measure ; we attempt in vain to conquer ]
the submission of the South to an impracticable
and intolerable policy ; our only hope must be that I
as President he will abandon the creed, the princi-
ples and pledges on which he will have been elected.

Defeat 'Lincoln, and all our great interests and
hopes are, unquestionably, safe.

If thus, or in any mode, we escape the perils of

which his election will be the signal, our noble ship
of state will issue forth from the breakers now
foaming around and ahead, and spring forward into
the open sea in all the majesty of her strength and
beauty.

But if the Providence, which has hitherto guided
and guarded our country, shall at last abandon us
to our foolish aud wicked strifes, I behold a far dif-
ferent scene.

It is too late ! It is too late ! We are upou the
bieakers. Whose eye quails now "? Whose cheek
blanches ? It is not mine, who ftlt a " provident
fear," and have done all I could. Where is the ex-
cellent President of the Chamber of Commerce,
whom they perched up in the forecastle to assure
us that a good look-out was kept for our safety ?
Where are the dozeu " great stakes,' as Mr. Web-
ster used to call them, wliom they planted closely
around him to shut out from the sight of tbe crew
the beacon erected by Washington V Where
are the thoughtless, reckless seamen who
taunted me with cowardice when I vainly strove to
warn them y I bear only the wailing cry ot selfish
terror as I sit upon the straining limbers, and watch
the rage of the sea. My mind is filled, my lieart
swells with the thought, that. -^ on wave which towers
before us will ecgult more of human happiness and
human hopes than have perished in any one catas-
trophe since the world began.

New York, October 2G, 18G0.

S. J. TILDEN.

7<. ^oo^. d)8 V. oo*/7«a.